| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Yes, things be bad here. Nason, please go back home to OZ. |
| 2006-01-03 |
| Plight of Katrina's forgotten victims David Nason, New Orleans January 04, 2006 IF Renita Miller ever chose to be resentful about the What does "based in Florida mean?" Is she in the bloody Army? Ms Miller lives in a low-income housing project at Homestead in southern Florida. The community was battered by storms on August 25 last year as Katrina made her way east into the Gulf of Mexico. Flooding ruined most of Ms Miller's family's meagre possessions. Four days later - on the same day that Katrina wiped out New Orleans - another tragedy struck when Ms Miller's eldest daughter, Tamika, died of AIDS. Today, the Millers are struggling to rebuild on a monthly of $US579 ($785) welfare payment in a house with fungus growing from the roof, rotting furniture and not enough beds. At night, most of the kids bunk down on piles of clothes and towels on the floor. Because Tamika's funeral exhausted the family savings, there's no money to fix the family car. So Ms Miller's second-eldest daughter, Shantrell, 19, takes three buses and a train to visit her new baby in hospital. Born prematurely like her two daughters, he clings to life in an incubator, battling underdeveloped lungs and bleeding from the brain. And dad is where again and who is paying for the delivery and incubator time? According to Ms Miller, inspectors from the Federal Emergency Yea Bert, the foundation looks good yet but where is the first floor? I'd say she's a total loss. So Ms Miller says she'll just do the best she can. "We're taking things one day at a time now," she says. "It can only go up from here. It really can't get any worse. We're sure praying on that anyway." Her stoicism is matched by a remarkable generosity. Ask Ms Miller about those millions of aid dollars flowing into New Orleans and she utters not a bitter word. "I don't want any of what they're getting - none of it at all," she says. "Those people lost everything they had. They need all the help they can get." Ms Miller's charity ought to be an inspiration to the estimated 135,000 people now living back in New Orleans and giving hope that the city can rise again. The annual Mardi Gras, albeit in a reduced eight-day format, will go ahead next month despite calls for it to be postponed. And this week, a gathering of evangelicals marks the first convention in the city since Katrina. An eight-minute format would be too damn much for me. But in the French Quarter, a case of withdrawn charity is forcing one of the city's oldest residents to leave the city. After 44 years as a doorman at the Hotel Monteleone, the once favoured haunt of writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, Fred Fenerberry is calling it a day. Good on ya Fred, glad you've finally awaken. Mr Fenerberry, 74, lost his Ninth Ward home and everything he owned to Katrina. Now, with business starting to pick up, his employer has asked him to vacate the hotel room he has been living in since then. "They're kicking me out and I got nowhere else to go," Mr Fenerberry said. "I can't pay the rents they want around here now, so I'll have to go someplace else and retire I guess." Mr Fenerberry doubts New Orleans can come back. He says that even before Katrina, the French Quarter had lost much of the wickedness and sense of adventure that had made it a famous party town. A loss of "wickedness," NOT THAT! But in a city Whahahahaa And as the Amtrak express train bound for New York winds its way out of town through the flood-devastated suburbs of East New Orleans, a sign comes into view advertising another event on the city's 2006 calendar: "Gun Show, BIG One, Jan 28-29." David Nason is The Australian's New York correspondent. Over the next fortnight he will He'll certainly find friends in Wyoming lol. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #9 so she had eight kids, two grandkids she has to watch because her spawn has already proven inadequate in the natural urges of parenting, and she's bitching??? Should've closed those firing tubes a LONG time ago |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-01-03 23:49 |
| #8 Deportation is always a possibility for undesirables like this assclown. |
| Posted by: Mahou Sensei Negi-bozu 2006-01-03 21:42 |
| #7 this is as lame and as shallow as that Olive Garden story. Damn, I wish I could get paid to write crap like this. Sounds like he was riding on the Amtrak train and spoke to three or four passengers and then, despite the good nature of the people he spoke to, spent about 10 minutes writing what reads like a snotty blog entry about a not-so sympathetic character in a city where really sympathetic ones are on every corner in town. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-01-03 20:16 |
| #6 David is enroute to see the Wyoming screening of Brokeback Mountain. Yes David some people who don't work and pop out children like a pez disperser have a rough time making ends meet in the U.S. But I doubt he is giving us or omitted the whole story. I have yet to see a section 8er that lives in a palace but if she is living in a total dump then she can complain to the LOCAL welfare/aid worker. Only the LOCAL welfare/aid worker can condemn a place for section 8 housing and move her to another place. The daughter sounds like a winner to, three kids and not a mention of the father. I would use the old apple/tree analogy but I think everyone sees the dependent/non-working relationship here. Anyone want to bet that none of the family has ventured out to look for work inthe Homestead area? FYI working part time would not suspend their benifits and might IMPROVE their standard of living. Renita good job, you raised ANOTHER generation that will have to rely on state support. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-01-03 18:30 |
| #5 SM - As with all melting pots, the Ozzies have a thin layer of scum riding on top, too. :-) |
| Posted by: .com 2006-01-03 17:38 |
| #4 Isn't Wyoming where Cheney is from? I bet he'll make it there. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-01-03 17:35 |
| #3 a sign comes into view advertising another event on the city's 2006 calendar: "Gun Show, BIG One, Jan 28-29." Oh MY David, how shocking! A gun show! In the South no less! Didn't the Australians used to be a race of rugged outdoorsmen or something? Damn, this guy sounds like a freaking San Franciscan! |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2006-01-03 17:15 |
| #2 Over the next fortnight he will be filing stories as he travels the US by bus and train from Louisiana to Wyoming. Wow. Sounds like "The Fugitive". Maybe he'll find a one-armed guy he can blame on Bush. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2006-01-03 16:56 |
| #1 Over the next fortnight he will unfortunately be filing stories as he travels the US by bus and train from Louisiana to Wyoming. Want to lay odds he goesn't reach Wyoming? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-01-03 16:45 |